


Deep Sea Diving

by 4eeldrive



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 22:46:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5683834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4eeldrive/pseuds/4eeldrive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aradia and Feferi hang out in real life for the first time ever and of course that would go awry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deep Sea Diving

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Squidhead](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squidhead/gifts).



Feferi bounced along in the currents, intent on her destination. Normally she’d take the time to play, swim-dashing around in the currents, startling schools of fish, eating some of the fish - but not today. She had a very important appointment to keep!

So important, that she’d completely forgotten to check her phone. Feferi hadn’t even registered the buzzing from an incoming message. The new notification went unchecked.

Nearing the meeting place, Feferi kicked out of the current’s main pull and into calmer waters. She was so excited! And also early? That couldn’t be right, she’d left her hive late and even stopped for a snack. She pouted and kicked herself backwards through the water a few feet. She hoped the other person hadn’t flaked out on her. Karkat hadn’t warned her that Aradia was flakey. She'd never seemed flakey in all the times they'd texted.

Feferi’s own discontent started to spiral into panic. Aradia wasn't flakey, so what else could her lateness mean? What if a shark had eaten her? What if a lusus had eaten her? What if a highblood had eaten her? Feferi pulled out her phone, ready to send a panicked message to Karkat and ask Kanaya for help, Kanaya always knew what to do, she’d know how to find a lost burgundy blood in the middle of the ocean, she’d never seen an ocean probably but she’d definitely for sure know what to do - oh! A new notification.

I’m on my way! It had been delivered twelve minutes ago. Unless Aradia had been eaten in the last twelve minutes, which Feferi wasn’t entirely ruling out, she was just running late. Feferi paddled around in a circle, exploring some of the nearby underwater vents briefly. Quickly losing interest, she kicked away again looking around for something else to distract herself with.

In the distance, a figure was approaching, metallic and heavy. A cloud of sand and silt billowed up behind them in the water. Kanaya had described desert sandstorms to her one time, and Feferi had never quite been able to picture it before now. She ducked behind a vent, waiting to see who it was kicking up an ocean sandstorm, and if she needed to fight or just make a break for it.

The orange-yellow horns that spiraled out from the diver’s helmet didn’t look familiar to her. But they did look like horns someone had described to her, all curled out like that. That's how Aradia had described hers when they were talking.

Feferi took out her phone again. If it wasn’t Aradia she hoped that the diver’s helmet would make it hard for the stranger troll to pick out the glow of her phone. There was a small buzz as she got another text.

I’m here!

Feferi peered around the vent again. The water around the diver moved contrary to all currents, displaced by minor crackling psiionics. They were pushing the water away from themselves in order to make walking in the heavy diver’s suit easier.

Where are you?

Feferi kicked out from behind the vents and swam towards the diver, gliding to an almost-stop in front of them. Through the circular face-window she could just make out a smile.

Hi Feferi! Feferi put a hand on Aradia’s armored shoulder to steady herself as she read the texts.

Hi Aradia! This is neat - I didn’t understand how you were coming down to meet me!

I found this neat old diver’s suit in a crashed ship that had washed inland! And I got Sollux to set up a voice-to-text headset in the helmet so I could talk to you :D

Feferi smiled wide at Aradia, hoping she could even see it through the little porthole.

Thats exciting! Was there anything else in the ship?

Oh you know. Some rusty coins. Bunch of bones.

The water around Aradia crackled heavily again with psiionics, pushing Feferi away.

? 38( 

Sorry, this thing is really heavy.

Feferi frowned in real life. She had been so excited to hang out with Aradia, and it had been so nice of her to offer to met her in the ocean! But it seemed like Aradia wouldn’t have as much fun hanging out stuck in a heavy hunk of metal.

Why don’t we head up to the shore? We can look for more neat stuff that's washed up?

That’d be great. It’s hot in this tin can.

Feferi kicked off from the bottom, and circled around to hook her arms under Aradia’s. It would go faster if she just carried her. She headed for the shore and surface, careful not to jostle the air tanks on the back of the suit too much.

Once they were both out of the waves and sitting on shore Aradia immediately started to claw her way out of the suit. It seemed like it was taking her a while to do the most basic movements, so Feferi helped her, pulling apart the two halves of the helmet, careful not to puncture the rubber seals that encircled the horns, in case Aradia wanted to keep the suit.

Aradia shook her hair out once the helmet was off. For a second Feferi was terrified water had leaked into the helmet, before realizing it was just sweat dampening Aradia's hair. Aradia was breathing heavily, winded just from getting her arms out of the suit. She still smiled at Feferi, laughing a little.

“You’re so strong! It took way less time getting back up here than it did getting down!”

“Oh, yeah, I guess! Thanks.” Feferi felt her cheeks heat up a little. She hadn't expected Aradia to be so pretty.

Aradia finally freed herself from the suit, wearing shorts and a tank top and looking significantly less weighed down.

“Bleh,” She nudged half of the helmet with her foot a little. “that worked way less well than I was hoping.” She pouted, puffing out a sigh.

“It was a good idea, though! I appreciate you coming to try and visit me! I haven’t met most of my friends in real life, so it was...really nice. Really.”

Aradia smiled and took Feferi’s hand, pulling her up from the sand.

“No problem! Let’s look for shells or whatever.”

The two walked along the beach, Aradia stopping every so often to shove pieces of driftwood and seaglass into her pockets, after the pieces passed some strict and nebulous metric she had. Sometimes Feferi would proffer one to her, and Aradia would always take it after examination. The two chattered away the whole time - Aradia rambled on about the shipwreck she’d found, forwarding all her hypotheses about what sank it. A lightning storm, mutiny, pirates, rival pirates. Feferi loved it, and forwarded her own. A coral reef that the lookout hadn’t seen, an angry and hungry lusus.

“Oh, oh, or what if it was both a storm, and a pirate ship used that as a cover to sneak up on them - that would explain the fire damage as well as some of the more mysterious holes in the hull!”

“Yeah!” Aradia’s eyes were wide with excitement. “Yeah! Or they were the pirates using the storm as cover and it just backfired horribly! They were sailing along all sneaky-like - I bet the diving suit was part of some plan to drill into the ship's hull or something and steal the goods while the other crew were distracted by the storm. The wouldn’t even hear it over the waves and lightning and wind.”

Feferi gasped at the narrative. This was fun. She’d have to come all the way up on land more often.

The sun was starting to rise, the horizon already a burning line. Feferi would have to get back to feed her mom at some point, and Aradia needed to get back to make sure her mom didn’t become someone else’s food. Feferi headed out towards the ocean.

“Whale, this was a lot of fun!” The waves were lapping at Feferi’s feet.

“It shore was.” Aradia’s dimples framed her wide smile.

Feferi kicked awkwardly at the debris the ocean was washing in, seaweed tangling around her feet.

“It was really nice to meet you in-person, Aradia. We should try and meet up again.”

Aradia leaned forward to hug her, and it took Feferi a second to react. She managed to recover and hug her back before she pulled away and waded back into the sea.

Aradia watched Feferi roll into the waves. When she was gone, she gathered up the diving suit. She had big plans to improve the hunk of junk.


End file.
